The Israeli colonists in Palestinian territories regularly attack
Palestinians. Some even attack Israeli police and soldiers.
Now Ehud Barak proposes to
arrest the latter, but the former
can apparently continue enjoying impunity.

Deborah Purdy, suffering from Multiple Sclerosis, may have to kill
herself while she still has enough capability to do it on her own, so
as to spare her husband from being
imprisoned for helping her do so
later on.

Forcing people to stay alive when their lives have deteriorated
into useless suffering is tantamount to torture.

If Mr Purdy faces prosecution by England for helping his wife go to
Switzerland for a later assisted suicide, instead of performing an
earlier unassisted one, I wonder if the Swiss government might Mr
Purdy politcal asylum.

In the UK, the option to pay extra for "green electricity" is just a con game. It does not lead to increased use
of renewable power generation, and it enables companies to pretend
they have cut their emissions.

The US Government Printing Office outsourced the manufacturing of the
passports to companies that make them cheaper. The result is that the
GPO makes a profit (which it appears not to be inclined to give back
to the treasury), and some of these companies might be less effective at preventing fake passports.

It may be interesting to think personally about a theoretical
question: if any John Q. Public can get a false passport, and that is
a bad thing, how much government violence and injustice would it take
to transform that into to a good thing?

Gifts that don't go to an individual, but do go to something that he
is attached to, have the potential to corrupt. For instance,
Microsoft built a large facility in Gordon Clown's district in
Scotland. Legally, this is not considered a payoff to Clown, but
practically speaking it functions as one.

We should increase the taxes on companies; then the government can
fund university research with that tax money. This will shield research
from the corrosive effects of corporate funding.

This is a couple of steps beyond the unjust laws of France and Italy,
which forbid open wireless networks. But any nasty thing that China
does to the Internet is likely to show up in "free" countries soon.
The excuses are "terrorism" (which often means dissent) and "child"
pornography.

The trade embargo is supposed to pressure Cuba to respect human
rights, but it has achieved zero towards that goal; if anything, it
convinces Cubans to rally behind their government. Likewise for the
occasional US-supported terrorist attacks against Cuba.

The idea is amusing as satire, because if anyone does deserve such
treatment, it is these bankers. On the other hand, it is also a
serious possibility, because many kinds of police and governments in
the UK can issue these orders and there are no clear rules about when
they are justified. Almost anything that results in annoying people
can be the excuse to threaten someone with jail for repeating it.

But this is precisely the reason why ASBOs are an unjust system and must be abolished. In effect, ASBOs replace rule of law with a system of imprisonment for whatever the authorities do not like. Such a vague law may occasionally be used in a way that implements justice, such as telling bankers they will be jailed if they continue their
recklessness. But that is the exception that proves the rule.

Can anyone show me an article which explains why the failure of some
banks (private companies) in Iceland causes the state of Iceland to
owe money? I have heard that banks in other countries are refusing
to convert the Icelandic kronor; why is that?

Whether or not this policeman is guilty, it is clear that many are,
because prohibition of drugs leads to systematic corruption. Since
marijuana is less dangerous than tobacco or alcohol, it ought to be as
legal as they are.

I don't believe in legalizing truly dangerous drugs such as cocaine
and heroin, but addicts ought to be able to get their fix in a
doctor's office. That would eliminate most of the harm of prohibition
while pulling the plug on the lucrative black market.

Venezuela needs strict limits on foreign funding of political activity,
because this is a method commonly used by Bush to destabilize other
countries. These limits should be established by law.

The oil stoppage in PDVSA was not a mere labor dispute but a
US-managed destabilization attack. Venezuelans have told me that the
US company which had the contract to run PDVSA's computers
participated in the attack by shutting down the computers and blocking
their use.

Venezuelans have told me that the opposition TV station which lost
its license actively supported the coup. This justifies action
against the station.

However, rather than administratively
canceling the station's license, I think the government should have
prosecuted the station and/or its management and owners.

Notwithstanding those points of disagreement, many of the points in
the report seem to be valid. I am disappointed.

The "temporary" US-backed Ethiopian occupation of Somalia, which has
now lasted almost 2 years. Kenya has sent many prisoners to Somalia, whence they were taken to Ethiopia and tortured so that US officials could interrogate them.

To propose to ban a non-addictive drug because on rare occasions
someone dies from using it wrong reflects a double standard based on
prejudice. People occasionally die from mountaineering, skydiving,
and swimming in the ocean, but we do not see proposals to ban those
activities.

Playing a game of shooting hundreds (or is it thousands?) of people to
attack an evil ruler, whether that be Saddam Hussein or Bush, does not
strike me as something likely to build good character. However,
Americans with a shallow idea of what patriotism consists of, the ones
who might have enjoyed demonizing Hussein, might learn some ethical
maturity by seeing the shoe on the other foot.

To prevent such things, formerly police could not listen directly to
anyone's phone. When they got court orders to wiretap phones, the
phone company listened, made transcripts, and gave them to the police
to carry out the order. Changes in the past decade or so have
eliminated this protection.

It should be no surprise that the NSA abuses its power. That is the
general tendency when "authorities" are given the power to investigate
people at will.

This excuse won't wash. This attack was on a village, a place where
civilians live. An army must presume that civilians are present in
their homes, unless it knows they have fled, which it certainly did
not know in this case.

What happened here is that the US decided to attack the Taliban with
weapons that would endanger any nearby civilians, without checking
first. NATO has changed its rules to avoid such recklessness, but the
US (which operates in Afghanistan separately from NATO) has not.

Some of these methods seem to be in use in the US as well — for
instance, surveillance of dissidents, detention without trial, surprise
raids on meeting places for protestors, as well as psy ops to convince
us that these attacks on our freedom are for our own good. In effect,
the US government is a government of occupation.

The most efficient way to find terrorists in the US is to check people
with connections to the White House, the CIA, and the State
Department. Those state-sponsored terrorists are not the only ones
they are likely to kill more people than the ones without ties to the
state.

The Skype software used in the rest of the world does not participate
in this particular surveillance system. Since it is proprietary
software, we can't check whether it does some other kind of
surveillance. And if it doesn't do surveillance today, the developers
could install it tomorrow.

This illustrates the general principle that proprietary software
is a threat to your freedom.

Whether the government of Queensland has been bought, or whether it is
thinking in narrow terms of boosting business in Queensland, is hardly
important. The world cannot afford politicians who do either of these
things.

When most of the UK's public housing was sold off to its tenants at a
discount, the short-term result was increased investment and public
satisfaction. 30 years later, many of these houses have been sold to
slumlords, rents are too high, and there's a big shortage of public housing.

From the film "Condor: The First War on Terror", I learned something
new about Pinochet's murderous dictatorship which was established by
the 9/11 attacks in Chile. Namely, that the dictatorial governments
that ruled most of South America at the time all cooperated to
capture, torture, and kill dissidents — and that they justified
this as a way to stamp out "terrorists".

One of the organizers of this collaboration appears in the film
defending his work by saying they only did the same thing that
Bush is doing now in the "war on terror".

It makes sense to prohibit giving support to terrorist organizations
as long as this is done even-handedly. The most dangerous terrorists
in Colombia are the paramilitares, supported by the Colombian
government. The most dangerous terrorists in Palestine are the
Israeli troops and settlers. When Denmark punishes those that do
business with the Colombian government and the Israeli government,
this law will be just.

If the list of terrorism-supporting states were honest, it would be
absurd to remove any country from that list as part of a deal about
something else. A country would be de-listed when, and only when, it
stopped supporting terrorism.

But the US-maintained list is a joke, since it doesn't include
Colombia (whose army and president support the murderous thugs known
as the paramilitaries), or Pakistan (whose intelligence service
started Al Qa'ida and apparently maintains close ties with the
Taliban), or the US itself. This list is merely an excuse to bash
countries arbitrarily while hiding the arbitrariness. It should be
abolished.

For 15 years, Israel has been officially in favor of peace
with a Palestinian state, but has insisted that the Palestinians
make all the concessions, thus ensuring there is no deal.
Now Palestinians are on the verge of giving up on the idea.

The US government and many others are displaying contempt for their
citizens by negotiating the so-called
"anti-counterfeiting" treaty in secret. 100 opposition groups
signed a demand to see the text, which so far only certain favored
businesses have been allowed to look at.

US citizens: send your congresscritter this
message not to give the auto industry a bailout without tightening
fuel economy standards.

The fact that only a big handout to business makes it possible to
defend the world from global warming illustrates the weakness of
democracy. That weakness was created by right-wing polititians
through their Free Exploitation Treaties. And they haven't stopped!
ACTA is supposed to be the next one.

So you might also say to your congresscritter that we should not have
to wait till companies need a bailout before we refuse to let them
run away with the public interest.

The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and
888-355-3588.

The regulations on bank lending were put in place by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, after a previous wave of speculation caused the
Great Depression.

The Great Depression was caused by overheated speculation which
encouraged people to make risky investments. But the right-wing
government of the 1920s played a role by refusing to do anything to
prevent the problem. Herbert Hoover did nothing to end the
depression; instead he proclaimed his faith in the Invisible Hand.
The Invisible Hand did not see fit to do anything.

In 1929, the speculation took the form of buying stocks with too much
leverage. Suppose you borrow 90% of the money to buy some stocks,
contributing only 10% of the purchase price yourself. If the stock
goes up 11%, you can sell it, repay the loan, and end up with twice
the money you put in. But If the stock goes down 11%, you don't get
out enough to repay the loan. You'll have to sell something else.

These extra-risky bets start to look good when the market has been
rising so long that people forget it can go down. So any downturn
will ruin som people, making them sell assets, making more prices go
down, etc. That can be a chain reaction.

This time it the problem arose specifically from subprime mortgages,
which were set up to charge low interest as long as the homeowner
walks the straight and narrow and the lender doesn't get in a bad
mood. One difference is that the lenders preyed on people who were
not wealthy enough to invest in stocks. We could tell stock owners,
"Tough, you should have known better." But these borrowers were
exploited. They deserve to be protected from foreclosure, in a way
that stock investors don't.

The worshipers of the Invisible Hand generally claim that their god
will do what is good for the public. but, when pressed, they reveal
that this is a tautology, because they define "good" as "whatever the
Invisible Hand does".

U.S. citizens: call your congresscritter and say, "don't give a
bailout to big companies without protecting the taxpayers and the
homeowners and making those who have gained from dangerous speculation
pay!"

The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and
888-355-3588.

Bush and his creature in Iraq, al-Maliki, still have not agreed on a treaty to authorize the Bush forces to remain past the end of the year. Bush demands immunity for the Bush forces, and Iraq (after they have murdered so many Iraqis) refuses.

Roanoke VA has just one company to get health care from.
When the local newspaper wrote about how it exploits this monopoly,
the company got the reporter taken off the issue by cutting its advertising.

There are grounds for skepticism about plenty of the official story.
I don't believe the "missiles, not planes" theories, since I
understand that many witnesses did see the planes. I have no basis to
believe the claims that the planes were flown by remote control (set
by the Bush regime) rather than by hijackers, although I won't say it
is flat-out impossible.

But I have doubts about who the hijackers really were. It was always
suspicious that the Bush regime claimed to be sure, so soon after, who
they were. The leaked private message from Osama bin Laden, which
denied involvement, creates more reason to doubt. (The published "bin
Laden" tapes have been suspect all along.)

I have no particular reason to assume bin Laden would not lie. On the
other hand, I have no reason to assume he did lie, whereas I know the
Bush regime can never be trusted. I won't treat this as proof that
bin Laden was not involved, but it creates a real doubt. Until there
is an honest investigation of those attacks, we do not know who
organized them.

When a garment worker in Los Angeles makes a dress that retails for
$100, the worker gets $1.72. This is according to Sweatshop Warriors,
by Miriam Ching Yoon Louie.

Next time someone claims that we can have faith in the invisible hand
to pay people according to the value of what they produce, we can suggest
he investigate why the invisible hand thinks the dress is worth so much
to the person who wears it, and so little to the person who makes it.

An opposition gang shot marching supporters of Bolivian President
Morales with machine guns, leading Morales to declare a state of
emergency in that region. The opposition appears to have the support
of the US ambassador, so Morales expelled him. Perhaps he should
close the US embassy.

When Lula calls for negotiation with separatist gangsters who are escalating step by step to see how far they can get, it is tantamount to encouraging them. Unless Brazil says it will support Bolivia's government against a rebellion engineered by rich people and their hirelings, it will encourage such a rebellion.

French President Sarcoma won election by promising to be harsh to
immigrants, because supposedly there were too many. It is typical of such regimes that they don't limit their cruelty to illegal immigrants or those who seek asylum falsely. They attack whoever they can get their hands on.

I don't agree with their religion, and I don't believe cattle have a
right to privacy. But humans do, and RFIDs are a grave threat to it.
If opposition by Christians helps block plans to put RFIDs in products
for sale, I will be glad of their support.

"Free trade" keeps poor countries poor, while protectionism can lead
to development. No wonder the the European Union is trying
to force the poor countries of the world into a "free trade"
treaty that will keep them subjugated and poor.

This seems to mean that Bush and Cheney have lost their bid to get
control of Iraq's oil. I hope so. But Iraq as a nation has lost
also, in that its oil revenue will go to foreigners (regardless
of what country they are from).

The interference is haphazard and unpredictable: one town will
threaten people for putting up posters about a lost cat; other towns
commit different outrages. But codifying these intrusions would not
make them acceptable.

The cold war put pressure on the US and the USSR to compete to present the
world with a more appealing model, and respect for human rights was one aspect
of the competition. Maybe such pressure will help us restore human rights in
the US.

Since the Iraqi government has developed enough gumption to say no to Bush, it
seems clear that most of the Bush forces will be removed by 2010 in any case.
That is good, but it also moves Obama effectively further closer to Bush.
Still not a hint of ethical criticism of the conquest and destruction of Iraq.

Supporters of the Chinese domination of Tibet like to defend it on the grounds
that China liberated the Tibetans from a feudal theocracy. That's true;
here in brief is what that feudal theocracy was like.

As the article also mentions, ending theocracy and serfdom does not justify
China's new forms of oppression and colonization, and respecting Tibetans'
autonomy and human rights does not imply restoring theocracy or serfdom there.

War is hell, always, but it's not always equally bad. If soldiers see that
the cause they are fighting for is unjust, and that the rules of ethics that
they have been taught are supposed to be ignored, they feel worse.

Attiqullah's bride and around 45 of his relatives were killed ago when the
US bombed his wedding party. The US says only that it is "investigating".
In two months of "investigating" it has not recognized who the bombs killed.

The "war on terror" is a dishonest and confused concept whose main purpose is
convincing Americans and others to cede their freedom without a fight. The
US government opposes some terrorism, and supports some terrorism —
including, at present, terrorism against Iran. Obama's use of the term should
remind us he is not really a defender of human rights in the US.

Did Bush's troop increase in Iraq "work"? That depends on what goal we judge
it against.

It may have been partly responsible for the reduction in intercommunal
violence. But the main cause of that change is probably that the ethnic
cleansing campaigns between the Sunni and Shi'ites were completed, so there
was no one left to chase into exile.

Did it make Iraq stable? No, because a more conventional civil war between
Shi'ites and Sunnis is now pending. Bush made peace with parts of the Sunni
resistance, by pointing out that al Qa'ida's violence against Shi'ites only
brought retaliation, and then offering money. The result is that these
regions have some peace and some autonomy. The Shi'ites of SCIRI, who
dominate the Iraqi Army, plan to fight them next year.

Everyone: tell CNN and MSNBC you want them to cover the fact that police arrested journalists at the RNC.

If you'd like to find out how to phone the offices of the presidents of these networks, please tell me and I will post the phone numbers. Ten phone calls will have far more impact than ten names on a petition.

It is standard practice for most parts of the the Israeli government to wink at any atrocity committed by Israelis against Palestinians. For instance, "settlers" stealing Palestinians' land can be violent with impunity.

Here's testimony from one witness. The police sealed the building after raiding it. They claimed to have a warrant, but refused to show
it, which suggests they were lying.

The End of America, by Naomi Wolf, warned that the US had gone nearly
all the way towards a police state, and that the full-blown tyranny
only becomes unmistakably visible at the last stage. That last stage
may be now.

It might not be too late to defeat this monster, if the mass media
were to make a scandal. Obama could make this happen if he decides to
try. But I expect that they won't. The mass media are certainly part
of the monster, and Obama probably is too.

I would not put it past them. Saakashvili surely supplied the main
enthusiasm for the attack, but it is an interesting question
whether he needed to get permission from the US before he could launch
it.

It is common for the effect of a radioactive or poisonous substance to
depend on how it is ingested. For instance, a given dose of polonium
210 might be much more dangerous when breathed in than when swallowed,
or vice versa. The article does not say, but I doubt it causes lung
cancer when swallowed. If someone sends me the answer I will post it
here.

Exposing these crimes might very well interfere with future
collaboration on torture. That, of course, is why they should be
published — not merely provided in secret to the defense
lawyers.

What the Bush regime says is, in effect, "Don't let anyone know about
our crimes, because we deserve not to suffer the consequences of
them!" Any other criminal saying this would meet with derision. If
the US is to claim to have rule of law, courts must give the Bushmen
the same derision.

But that is not likely, given that this is a "military tribunal" which
does not meet the usual criteria for a fair trial.

Israeli settlers try to drive the Abu Kabaita family off its land by
killing or
stealing their sheep. The Israeli police support this campaign of
harassment by refusing to accept complaints from the family.

In Hebron, Israeli settlers attack Arabs
and their homes, and also attack the international monitors who
were placed there to discourage such attacks.

Thousands of children died in the Sichuan earthquake because their
schools were not properly built. China has used lies, travel bans, and
arrests to prevent them from being seen.

It makes me think of the way the Bush regime treats the 9/11 relatives
who want a real investigation of what happened on that day. In the US
and in China, the political system is rotten through and through.

In today's Iraq, the three ethnic/religious groups no longer live together;
the reason the violence has mosty ended is that each ethnically cleansed
certain territory. This resembles to a certain extent the solution that I and
later Biden proposed.

But my proposal included another element: to give each group a friendly
supporting army committed to reinforcing it in defense but not helping it
attack others. Currently the Shi'ites have the "Iraqi" army, and the Sunnis
have none. Thus they are afraid of a third stage of the war in which they
will be crushed.

The Bush forces bought
the support of many Sunni resistance groups. Now the Shi'ite
Iraqi government wants to arrest them.

Now that these two religious groups have come to hate and kill each
other, they will either have separate governments or one will conquer
and repress the other. In the past, the Sunnis under Saddam Hussein
repressed the Shi'ites, but did not need to kill tremendous numbers of
Shi'ites to do this. It won't be so easy now, I think.

To stop people from leaving a country is inexcusable injustice. The
Soviet Union and its puppet governments used to do this; today Israel
does this in Gaza, and Iran has put itself in the same category.

No one can predict what will happen to Pakistan in the future; every
political event there creates imponderable good and bad possibilities.
However, in ethical terms, his attempt to sack the independent
judiciary was an attack on democracy; if this means that the court's
legimate judges will return, it is a victory for democracy.

Although Georgia started the war and lost it, it is now winning
the PR battle to present itself as right.

But I don't think we can credit this solely to a PR agency.
Saakashvili is more or less a poodle of Bush, so he gets the US
government's PR assistance, and that probably includes secret inside
media help as well.

Hiu Ng was arrested by the Department of Homeland Security due to
its own confusion, then denied the chance to see a doctor to diagnose
what turned out to be cancer. When he became unable to walk, guards
dragged him on the ground. When he could not stand on line to receive
painkillers, he was denied them. He was forbidden to see his
US-citizen wife and children until a couple of days before he died.

Even if the plan to deport him had not been a mistake, it could not
justify this callous cruelty. And the government officials whose job
is to parrot claims that this sort of thing never happens are just as
guilty for covering this up as the people who did it.

This is to "fight crime", but crime is a minor danger compared with that
of an all-powerful all-seeing state. When the government declares suspicion
grounds to imprison someone, everyone has a valid reason to conceal his
activities from the state.

However, those claims are unconfirmed and could be exaggerated. Human
Rights Watch says that Russia is exaggerating
the casualty figures for Georgia's attack on South Ossetia, and is
concealing real data.

The critics of Russia point out that Georgia's attempt to reestablish
control over South Ossetia was quite analogous to Russia's two
reconquests of Chechnya. That is right: Russia's positions conflict
hypocritically.

Russia responds to this by pointing out that the US defense of
Georgia's "territorial integrity" conficts hypocritically with its
removal of Kosovo from Serbian control. That is right too, but
criticism of the US doesn't invalidate the criticism of Russia. Both
the US government and the Russian government are hypocrites, and
neither one can make itself honest just by criticizing the other.

So what about the substance of the issue? Since the South Ossetians
mostly would rather be part of Russia, I see no reason to force them
to be part of Georgia.

I have never before seen these claims about Iranian biological
weapons, and this article isn't enough to convince me of them. But
the claims about maneuvers and ship movements should be easy to check,
so I expect they are true.

After Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian child and a teenage
bystander during nonviolent protests in Ni'ilin, Israelis protested the
commander of the regiment, who has the responsibility to make sure his troops
do not commit atrocities. 23
protestors were arrested and badly beaten.

If filming from a helicopter was dangerous, it was right and proper
not to do it. There would be nothing wrong with broadcasting a
computer simulation instead, if it were labeled as such. The wrong
committed here was that of lying, and lying is characteristic of the
Chinese government.

After Georgian troops in South Ossetia were totally defeated by
Russian forces, Georgia says it withdrew them as a "humanitarian"
gesture. Will anyone believe that? But Russia rejected the
opportunity to declare victory, and is attacking
Georgia elsewhere.

Russia seems to have won this move, but the important point is that
neither Russia nor the US deserves anyone's support. Neither
government respects human rights. Both of them rig elections. Both
deserve defeat in their ambitions.

Arbitrarily excluding people from running for office is no better in
Venezuela than in Iran. If there is evidence to accuse these
candidates of corruption, they should be given fair trials and thus a
chance to clear their names.

CIA agent Rob Richer told Ron Susskind that he (Richer) circulated
a faked letter connecting Saddam Hussein with Al Qa'ida. After
Susskind's book appeared, Richer first said it was true, then denied
it. So Susskind published the text of Richer's interview where he
admitted this. The original text of the letter arrived on White House
letterhead.

It is absurd to punish anyone for having sex with someone of age 15
— it is normal for Americans of age 15 to have sex. But even if
he had committed a real crime, such as robbery, for which punishment
is appropriate, deporting someone who arrived in the US so young is
absurd.

It seems clear that Russia gave Russian citizenship to most South Ossetians as
a prelude to annexation. Citing that now as an excuse for intervention is
bogus.

It seems virtually certain that Georgia started the war. The attack it made
takes preparation, and the preparations must have started several days before
the start of the Olympics, timed for an attack on that day. If Georgia had
responded to a surprise attack by the South Ossetians on that day, it might
have counterattacked, but the counterattack would not have been so big.

I wonder whether Georgia asked Bush's permission before attacking. A
government so dependent on the US that it would send troops to the Bush forces
is compelled also to obey.

South Ossetian is obviously acting as a pawn of Russia, and I think it
likely that Georgia is acting as a pawn of the US, but I don't
understand the situation enough to have any further opinions about it.

Salim Hamdan was
convicted in a phony trial for the crime of being
Osama bin Laden's driver — under an ex-post-facto law,
which is explicitly unconstitutional. We cannot tell whether some
of the "evidence" was obtained by torture.

The Chinese spokesman pompously hopes people will "obey the laws of
China", but why should anyone do that? The tyrannical laws of China
deserve obedience just as much as the tyrannical laws of the US
— which is to say, not at all.

It is a strange reversal for an organization that once patriotically
fought the US-imposed Shah to work with the regimes of Saddam Hussein
and Bush that are clearly enemies of their country. It could be the
result of carrying a grudge too far, or it could be simple corruption.

The Bush forces reduced violence in Iraq by informally supporting tame
Sunni as well as Shi'ite militias. However, the Shi'ite militias are
called the "army" and "police", while the Sunni militias are not. And
the Shi'ite
militias are prepared to use that to reignite the massacres.

What Bush did is partially similar to what I called for two years ago,
but not entirely similar. My plan was to give both Shi'ites and
Sunnis non-Bush foreign military support to defend themselves. With
Bush's way, the Shi'ites have foreign military support and the Sunnis
do not.

Note how the police cite the "university authorities" as having decided that
Sabir is not allowed to study these materials, while these supposed
"authorities" duck their responsibility to defend academic freedom by saying
nothing and only citing the police.

Evidently the "university authorities'" decision has nothing to do with truth,
justice, or academic freedom, and merely represents obedience to the Sheriff
of Nottingham. This law, which prohibits possession of documents that "might
be useful" for terrorism, is nothing but a veiled way of imprisoning people on
suspicion.

The UK government is a bigger threat to Britons' lives than any
non-state-sponsored terrorist group, and what's worse, it attacks their
freedom as well.

As Mohammed Omer returned to Gaza after receiving an international
prize for journalism, Israeli border guards wanted to steal the prize
money. But he didn't have it on him, so they tortured
him instead.

I have no way of judging whether to believe either claim, but what is
most interesting is that the anthrax letters were very effective at
convincing Congress to pass the U SAP AT RIOT act which attacked human
rights in the US. If Ivins carried out the attacks, we will probably
never know whether someone such as Cheney planned them.

I supported the war against the Taliban in 2001. After the quick
victory, I thought there was a chance to make Afghanistan a much
better and fairly peaceful place. Was that a delusion, or was it
ruined by Bush's invasion of the country he had always wanted to
invade?

China has imprisoned people for talking
about the structural flaws of schools that collapsed in the
earthquake. And the International Olympic Committee made a deal
agreeing to censorship of foreign reporters' internet access.

The IOC strikes me as disgustingly hypocritical, pretending that it
will uplift humanity through an event which is really just
entertainment, and then making the event go by conniving at
suppression of human rights.

Sami el Haj, an Al Jazeera journalist held captive in Guantanamo for
six years, now campaigns for the release of other prisoners and the
end of torture. Here he describes
how he and others were tortured in Guantanamo.

The WTO negotiations have broken down because China and India (leading
many of the poor countries) would not accept
some US demands about power for the agribusiness megacorporations.

We should cheer this failure, because any agreement made now has to be
a change for the worse. Whatever the US and EU agreed to on 18
"resolved" issues surely gives more power to megacorporations, else
the US and EU would not accept it.

I don't hold any enthusiasm for Obama; at best he will be like Clinton
but even less liberal. However, systematic destruction of democracy
is dangerous even if there is no good candidate is likely to win this
year.

And you can be sure that if Obama loses because of this
disenfranchement, Democrat activists will blame it on the Green
candidate.

What's crucial here is that it demonstrates the way the Bush forces
always claim their victims were enemy fighters, regardless of the
truth. The story about a "misunderstanding" caused by the gun in the
car (surely a normal thing in Iraq) is not believable: the dead
driver's son was at the scene while the car was still burning, so the
Bush forces knew who they had killed before they had a chance to look
at what was in the car.

I suspect that the Bush forces admitted the "mistake" this one time
only because they feared alienating the other people that work at
Baghdad airport, and that this does not represent a change in policy.

This demonstrates once again that Obama himself is right-wing, but it could be
worse. Sarkozy is known for his draconian law which has made even the
possession of a copy of DeCSS a crime. I hope this doesn't indicate that
Obama will attack the freedom of computer users even further.

Nuclear reactor companies want government subsidies to build more
nuclear power plants, because they are far more expensive than safe
renewable electric generation or more efficient use of electricity.
They make no economic sense except as handout to the rich.

That makes sense, but I find it fishy to claim that Mugabe, who does
not shrink from murder and torture, would shrink from the wrong of
using a proprietary program without a license. He has already
committed the more grave wrong of using it with a license.
And if he doesn't fear that torture victims might sue him, how could
he fear that the developer might sue him?

It is the general practice of the Bush regime and its allies to issue
orders to silence people who can testify to the evil they have done.
Consider for instance the gagging of Mordecai
Vanunu in Israel (even though he has no nuclear secrets as such
left to tell) and the translator Sibel
Edmonds in the US.

It isn't explicitly clear whether the other bathers knew that the
girls were Roma, or even noticed that they were dead. But even if
they did, I think the scandal's focus is in the wrong place.

I don't see why it is obligatory to make a fuss about a stranger's
corpse. That won't help anyone, least of all the person who died.
The time that we have an obligation to pay attention is while the
person in danger is still alive. Someone did call for help, but did
others neglect that duty out of prejudice? If so, that should be the
real scandal.

The article understates the general situation which led to this. The
department of the "Iraqi" government which runs the prisons was (and probably
still is) in the hands of Shi'ites linked to the Badr brigades, and murdering
Sunnis was their aim.

There are reports that
Israeli fighters are landing in Iraq near Haditha as practice for attacking
Iran. The "Iraqi" government denies this, but you could hardly expect them to
be more honest than their master.

I see nothing wrong in foreign support for resistance against
the military rulers, even if its motive is amoral international
rivalry. But it looks like just enough to stir the pot, and
nothing that could actually help.

When the Israeli Supreme Court ruled to move the annexation wall away from the
lands of the farmers of Bil'in, that was the main victory for non-violent
Palestinian activism. Now
the government is making a mockery of the court decision, disregarding it
while building new colonies that it will later claim it has to "protect".

The people quoted in the article hesitate to denounce this as strongly as it
deserves. But since the Bush regime is already guilty of torture,
imprisonment without trial, and wars of aggression, we need not suppose that
things have to get any worse before regarding its power as a threat to
liberty. The US government is already Americans' worst enemy.

Such accusations are not at all absurd. Remember Nixon and Watergate? Perhaps
Sarko's men were behind this; but the question is why.

There was a clear motive for Nixon to send people to burglarize the Democratic
Party headquarters: knowing the opposition's campaign plans. Sarco defeated
Royal a year ago, so that motive would not apply. Is there another possible
motive?

I think that the UK made a serious attempt to convict Mousa's killers of
murder, and the failure reflects the fact that the system and the situation
make this very difficult to do.

The military occupation of a hostile civilian population will inevitably lead
to such events, and it will inevitably be hard to prosecute them. Therefore,
anyone considering ordering the military occupation of a hostile civilian
population ought to realize in advance that this is part of what will result.

A crusading judge has convicted some of the Italian fascist police
that attacked, injured and tortured sleeping protestors in Genoa. Now
the fascist government of Italy intends to make sure
they never go to prison.

It is callous and absurd for Russia to strike back at Bush by
punishing innocent millions in Zimbabwe that have never helped Bush.
However, Bush is also to blame for the provocation. Between these two
tyrannical regimes, there is little reason to prefer one or the other.

I wish it were true, but the Bush regime has an almost perfect record
of abolishing freedom and democracy in the US, and a very good record
of handing out money to his cronies. The 9/11 attacks might also be
one of its successes; sabotaging and corrupting the investigation
certainly was.

The US "terrorist" watch list now
has a million names on it, which means that millions of people are
likely to be harassed when they fly. But they can't be absolutely
sure of stopping every terrorist unless they put every person in the
world on the list.

Taking enemy soldiers prisoner is not wrong, but torturing them is;
and so is putting them on trial merely for fighting against soldiers.
While the Bush regime rejects all civilized standards for its own
behavior, it imposes ridiculous standards on its enemies. That's
"victor's justice", and would bring more shame on the US (as if there
weren't enough already).

The supposed threat of Iran is certainly a great thing for those who want to
distract Americans while picking their pockets of freedom. Iran is no threat
to the US. It could attack US forces in the Middle East, but since those
forces are engaged in an act of aggression, attacking them is not wrong at all.

A nuclear-armed Iran could theoretically bomb and destroy Israel, but Israel
could retaliate and destroy Iran, and I don't think the Iranian generals want
that outcome.

It would not surprise me if Iran's leaders really want nuclear weapons. The
twin examples of North Korea and Iraq show that nuclear weapons are the only
way for a country to be safe from the US. So they might want nuclear weapons
only for self defense. I would not put it past them to consider wars of
aggression. But they are not likely to attack Israel, which could retaliate
with its own nuclear weapons.

The policy is inconvenient in the short term, but maybe it makes sense.
Tobacco is addictive, so it is far more dangerous than marijuana. If the
coffee shops find a way to satisfy their marijuana customers without the
tobacco, they will remain successful, and this policy will prevent marijuana
from being a gateway to hard drugs. But if that doesn't work, I think they
should make an exception.

Israel said that it normally takes special care so that this won't happen to
journalists. This treatment is supposed to be limited to ordinary
Palestinians, who won't be in such a good position to write about it.

The EU's data protection rules are one of the best things it has done. At
that time, the EU had statesmen who looked at goals beyond increasing their
own power and the power of business. What a sad contrast is the EU of today.
Any change that it proposes today which affects human rights or democracy will
generally be bad.

When fighting against a guerrilla army, the US government standard practice is
to claim that anyone it kills in battle was an enemy fighter. Those claims
are meaningless; the US tactics inevitably kill many civilians. However, the
Taliban cares even less about them.

Our ability to monitor warming in great detail means there will be hundreds of
minor milestone moments. So it will be easy for the deniers to respond, about
each one, that it isn't important by itself. That's true, but the continuing
process they are part of can be fatal.

The Everglades are basically a broad shallow river full of grass, descending
gradually to the sea. Protecting it from direct contamination is the right
thing to do, but I'm worried about another pollution threat: salt water.
Global warming is making sea level rise. What's the elevation of the highest
point in the Everglades?

This deal makes sense, given that North Korea already has nuclear weapons, and
that it can threaten South Korea with great destruction even without them. I
won't criticize Bush for doing something that is right.

But compare this with Iraq. Bush gave three excuses for attacking Iraq:
developing nuclear etc. weapons, support for terrorists, and Hussein's
oppression of the Iraqi people. The first one was false for Iraq but true for
North Korea. The second was false for both. On the third point, Kim Jong Il
is far more cruel than Saddam Hussein ever dreamed of being. So if you're not
going to attack North Korea, why attack Iraq? Only oil.

Note also how removing North Korea from the list of "sponsors of terrorism"
proves that the list is dishonest. The change that North Korea is now making
in its nuclear programs has nothing to do with terrorism. So either there was
no reason for Korea to be on the list, or there is no reason to remove it now.
Clearly this list is just an "enemies list", an insult that the US government
makes against countries it does not like, and has nothing to do with the truth.

Each note starts with a date and a brief topic in parentheses. That
text is also a link to that note.
For instance, if the note
starts with "20 July 2003 (Iraq)" then you can link to it with
"https://stallman.org/notes/may-aug-03.html#20 July 2003 (Iraq)".